Hello,

I’ve submitted my manuscript to 14 agents in total over the last year. From these I got two requests for a full ms (one which praised it but ultimately rejected it and one from an agent who is still reading it (after 11 weeks – argggh!))

I think I’ve had just about enough encouragement to give another round of submissions a go, but I’m running really short on suitable agents. I acknowledge how fat the Writers and Artists yearbook is and have found some very useful comments from the WW site’s directory, however I would just like to have a rant – how am I supposed to know which agents I might fit with ??

Less than half of the agents I have looked at have websites and many do not even list their current clients. This leaves me with the vague genre descriptions which I might possibly fall into – ‘women’ (but in some cases this is only chick-lit, which I don’t do), ‘mystery/crime’ (maybe…but I’m not writing the police procedurals that they all seen to love) etc. etc. I admit that maybe this is a problem for me only because my book doesn’t fit any genre very easily.

Am I missing some major source of info or have others experienced this problem? Am I being too picky about who I send to? When I’m looking in the yearbook, what do the cryptic one liners like ‘crime’ and ‘women’ really mean if they don’t give examples of what or who they represent? I just get the feeling that there must be loads of agents out there opening submissions and thinking ‘why did this person ever think that we would be interested them?’ when the agent has given next to no information about what they do.

Seriously, is this just my problem? I really want to target my submissions properly and want to make each one as tailored as possible but, at the moment, I only have 2 new leads.

Help!

Livi

It's depressing, isn't it - though two requests for the full is very good news (and 11 weeks is so standard, but so agonising!)

I think the trouble is that all these genre categories and sub-categories are so slippery, and most agents aren't altogether specialists, it's more that they have tendencies towards: tastes within crime, or whatever, but they certainly wouldn't rule out a terrific why-dunnit, even if their current big authors are more procedural who-dunnit. An agency which doesn't do much mainstream chick-lit might well if a real and slightly off-beat cracker of a chick-lit-ish book dropped through the door, and equally well turn down something more mum-litty, say, which was perfectly good but they just didn't quite fall in love with, or which was so like a client they'd just taken on they didn't want to be pitching two clients at once, in competition with each other.

Which is only to say that while it's obviously sensible to be very focussed in the first round, casting your net wider is the inevitable next stage, because you can't possibly know these things, and they don't expect you to: the only thing you can do is query widely. It's very self-concious-making, imagining what they're thinking when they open your submission, but unless you're sending poetry, or semi-porn in green ink, I promise you they're not thinking anything at all, just working their way through the pile. And don't forget that something that isn't quite one agent's cup of tea might well be a colleague's: they do pass a promising MS around between themselves.

The other way to tackle it is to find authors who are operating in roughly your territory, and try to find out who their agent is - it's on their website quite often, or often in the acknowledgements if they do the chatty sort, or googling. But it sounds as if you've done that.

Very good luck with it, anyway, and maybe something will come off the full MS which is still out there.

Emma

<Added>

"self-concious-making"

or even selfconscious-making

<Added>

Meant to say, if you feel you're writing somewhat in between the genre categories, such as they are, that's even more reason to query widely, because you can't know whether your chick-lit-crime novel is going to appeal most to someone who'd call themselves a crime-enthusiast, or a chick-lit-enthusiast.

Livi,

my current wip is inbetween genres (chick lit/historical/light crime/mystery) and i think this does go against us. However, the obvious answer is to email/telephone first, instead of just blind submitting. I know, scary, i cower from phoning (you may not) but i recently emailed a query to an agent i hadn't subbed to before ( ie knew little about) and she said to send a sample in.

The other way is to look on the acknowledgment pages of books of other authors writing books you think would attract the same readers as yours.

And then we have the blanket approach - a couple of writers on here both just subbed to 50 or so agents. Both are now published.

Good luck
x

Am I being too picky about who I send to?

In a way, Yes. But then, as you've come to realize, what other choice is there? If your ms has already done the rounds of likely agents, your only other option (aside from sending it back out to the same agents), is the less targetted approach, 'blanket submissions', in the hope of interesting an agent. When it's a choice between giving up on the novel, or continuing to submit it, there really isn't any other choice - aside from the US, of course, and for that you'll need to write a Query (thankfully, most US agents accept Queries by email).


- NaomiM

Thanks everyone,

Maybe I do need to cast my net a little wider and notch up some more rejections (and big postage costs)

As I think I’ve said in another post, it’s such a bemusing industry if you are an outsider, so comments like yours are always really helpful.

Cheers,

Livi

Sorry not had time to read other replies, so this may repeat, but one way to earmark agents is to Google authors you love whose readership might also like your book. Find out who their agents are and then approach them with a mention in the letter that you admire X and think your own work might appeal to a similar readership.

Livi, it’s a really difficult problem that many writers have come up against. All I can say is that I agree with Cherys – search out similar novels to your own and find out who the authors’ agents are.

Good luck!

Dee

I also think that sending an email query or phoning to check if they'd be interested in principle, is a good idea. I know it's scary but I don't think they'd object.

Good luck with your submissions, Livi.

I don't know anything about the boundaies of 'crime' as a category, but can I just say that I suspect 'women's fiction' is quite a catch-all category? I really don't think that when they say that they necessarily mean just romance or chick fic or saga. I think it tends to include all general fiction which is (i) not specifically lit fic and (ii) is about relationships/families, as very broadly defined.

Rosy

Yes, I'd agree that 'women's fiction' is a huge category, with chicklit etc. as sub-categories. Just as 'crime' covers everything from thrillers via psycho to strictly traditional detective fiction.

It's all part of the way that they don't know what they're looking for, just that they'll know it when they see it...

Emma

If it's crime I'd be tempted to try anyone who accepts commercial stuff.
HB x

It's not easy, but there are other sources of info - get googling, for example; some well-directed searching can throw up all sorts of info. Also read the Bookseller, BookBrunch etc for rights reports and see who's doing what deals...

Thanks everybody,

Thinking about it, the agent that currently has my full ms is one that I initially thought would be a long-shot, so I guess that proves you can't always predict where your best chances are going to be!

I will widen my search and try all your suggestions (and hope for some good luck too!).

Thanks

Livi

[Edited by david bruce at 19:51:00 on 14 December 2008
Reason: [previous commercial post by another member removed ]]

My book has been with an agent since August and I know it's borderline whether they take it or not. I wrote it as a women's fiction novel, but the agency are saying it is almost impossible to place women's fiction unless it has 'best seller' stamped all over it. But as my book has a crime thread running through it in the form of a stalker, they are considering whether to call it a crime novel!


Suzanne
www.sue-stokes.co.uk